Blood & Lust
by Beboppin' Betty
Summary: Charlie's on her own and is out for blood, and there's only one person who can help her get it.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing affiliated with Revolution.

* * *

The Patriots plagued her dreams that night, as they usually did. Visions of brown uniforms and blood and death had kept her from getting a decent night's sleep for weeks now. As a result she was always on the edge of wakefulness, and because of that she was awake the instant someone's hand dropped to her shoulder. She had a knife to his throat before she was fully aware of the situation. "Sarah, stop! It's me!"

Charlie blinked and recognized Luke, one of the people she'd been travelling with for the last few weeks. She dropped her arm and stuck her knife back in her belt, but she didn't apologize. He grimaced and wiped the thin line of blood from his neck. "You've got to relax a little, Sarah. Jesus."

"Relax. Sure," she snorted. "Are Rafe and Eva back yet?" Two more of their party who'd gone ahead to scout. Luke shook his head rolled out his blanket on the opposite side of the fire. "Not yet, but I'm sure they're fine." He settled into his bedroll with a yawn. "It's your watch." Charlie gave a short nod and scanned the small camp. Including the two out scouting, there were eight people all together, and not for the first time Charlie wondered what she was doing with them. She'd left Willoughby more than three months ago and had hooked up with them not long after, when she'd run into Luke unexpectedly. Her thoughts turned to him and her gaze paused on his sleeping form. The first time she'd met Luke he'd tied her up in an empty swimming pool with Monroe for company. At the time she'd thought he was an idiot – for not killing Monroe when he had the chance, and really for not killing her either. She'd appreciated the mercy, of course, and had returned the favour after Monroe had predictably escaped and tried to shoot him. A basic level of understanding between them had been established that day, so when he'd approached her in that shitty bar, she decided to roll with things for a while.

She'd been surprised to learn that he was running with a crew of diehard Anti-Patriots. She'd been doing the lone wolf thing until that point, hunting down every Patriot she could find, but for every one she killed two more sprang up in his place. It was maddening. Then Luke had introduced her to the Anti-Patriot Movement. It was small and underground, but it had given her a modicum of hope that they weren't _totally _fucked. She didn't trust him though. She didn't trust anyone anymore. Hence the fake name. But as far as she could tell, nobody in this group really trusted each other anyway. She'd be surprised if any of them were using real names.

When Rafe and Eva returned to camp in the morning, Charlie was field dressing a wild pig she'd bagged by chance after her watch had ended. She was bloody up to her elbows and was tossing the entrails into the fire as they approached. "What's cooking?" Rafe asked eagerly as they dropped their bags and guns. "Pig intestines," she replied drily. "Find anything?"

"Patriot camp about six or seven miles from here. Maybe a Brainwash Camp."

Charlie almost smiled at this news, and her palms itched for her sword. Eva caught the look in her eyes and shook her head. "It was deserted. Looks like someone got there before us, a while ago. Lot of heavy fire damage. I doubt many of them got out of there alive from the look of the place." Charlie deflated a bit at that, then rallied. "Good."

Luke joined them at the fire. "What's good?" Rafe filled him in on the discovery and Luke mulled in the information over as he made himself a cup of coffee. "That's a pretty bold move, going after a Brainwash Camp. The Patriots wouldn't have let that one go without a fight. I wonder who did it."

Charlie had a pretty good idea of who it might have been, but she kept it to herself. "I hope whoever it was keeps it up." Rafe speared a piece of the meat with his knife and stuck it in the flames. "You've got the worst hard-on for the Patriots that I've ever seen. Why?" Charlie set her jaw, biting back the emotion that threatened to spring up in her chest. The moment passed and she returned her attention to butchering the pig. "The Patriots murdered half my family." Luke's gaze sharpened on her immediately – she could feel his eyes boring into her back. "I thought you said Sebastian Monroe murdered half your family." She straightened and fixed him with a look so cold he almost recoiled.

"He did. The Patriots took the other half."

* * *

**Willoughby – Four months before.**

Miles and Rachel were at it again. Charlie had escaped to the front porch try and avoid it, but realistically she knew even Mexico wasn't far enough away. Aaron and Priscilla had left a week ago because of it. They'd given other reasons of course, but Charlie knew otherwise. She sat on the steps and sipped from the silver flask she'd taken to carrying, and pretended to count the stars. She didn't turn when the front door squeaked, but she knew from the weight of the footsteps that her grandfather had come to join her. He sat down with a heavy sigh and frowned at her, pulling the flask from her fingers. "Listening to that day and night is enough to drive anyone to drink," he said, and took a pull of the whiskey before passing the flask back to her. Charlie snorted. Monroe had stormed off a month ago, and every day that passed that he hadn't returned was another day that Miles and Rachel could be found fighting. Almost always the fight was about the Patriots and what their next move was, and why so-and-so's idea was stupid or suicidal or naïve or reckless. Whatever.

"I _never _thought I'd say this," Charlie began tentatively. "But I'm beginning to think we were better off when Monroe was here." She'd realized some time ago that Miles and Monroe really were an excellent team. They balanced each other out and were always able to work out between them the best plans of action. Gene grimaced. "And I hate to say it, but you might be right." The fight came to a head and Rachel slammed through the door, raging. "Stupid…bullheaded…MAN!" Gene smiled tightly at his daughter. "Remember, Sweetheart, you _love _him." Rachel glowered at him. "I could do without the patronizing, Dad." She paused and glanced at her watch. "If we don't leave now we'll miss Marion."

"I was just waiting for you."

Charlie didn't bother watching them go. They'd been meeting Marion Kelly – their mole inside the Patriot operation – for the last three weeks at her father's gravesite. Charlie knew that Miles and Rachel were banking on getting that one vital piece of information that would give them the upper hand, but Charlie had her doubts. She didn't expect they'd get anything useful out of a woman who was terrified of her husband. Maybe Monroe's plan at the time had been short sighted, but a part of her had wanted to see those particular Patriot bastards pay for their slaughter of dozens of innocent people. Instead they'd only succeeded in getting no justice and no good intel. Charlie sighed, ignoring the fact that she was sympathizing with Sebastian Monroe, and went inside to find her uncle.

* * *

"They should have been back by now."

Miles was staring out the window impatiently. Rachel and Gene should have been back an hour ago, and Charlie was beginning to worry as well. She shared a look with her uncle and they both reached for their guns, silently agreeing that it was time to go after them. "Miles," Charlie said quietly as they hurried to the graveyard. "Something's gotta give with you and mom." His shoulders tensed for a moment, then sagged. "Yeah, I know."

"A decision needs to be made. You're constantly arguing in circles…and the longer we sit back 'strategizing', the harder it's gonna be to take them down."

Miles huffed. "Tell me something I don't know, kid."

They approached the woods bordering the cemetery and silently picked their way through the trees. Charlie fought with herself for a moment, wondering if saying what had been plaguing her lately was a good idea or not. Really, there was nothing to lose if she did, so she hesitantly threw it out there. "Have you thought of…tracking Monroe down…again?" Miles stopped dead in front of her and she crashed into him with an 'oof'. His eyebrows had all but disappeared into his hairline. "Seriously? Did Hell freeze over when I wasn't looking?" Charlie shrugged. "He might be an outrageous asshole, but he got things done." Miles smirked a little and they resumed their trek. "Well, you're right about that. But not everyone appreciates _how _he gets things done. Since when did you join the fan club?"

Charlie shrugged again and let the conversation drop at that point, but Monroe remained on her mind. Maybe if Miles didn't spend all of his time arguing with Rachel, he'd have figured that her opinion of Monroe was far from black and white anymore. She sure as hell wasn't a _fan_, but she had come to appreciate he was a means to an end. Then all trace of Sebastian Monroe evaporated from her mind when they reached the cemetery. It was eerily deserted with no sign of Rachel or Gene or Marion, except when they approached the grave. Miles let out a stream of curses and Charlie's stomach dropped. Neatly draped over Marion's father's grave was a crisp, brightly coloured American Flag.

The Patriots had their family, and were cheerfully issuing a challenge with that flag. _Come and get 'em! _It seemed to shout.

Charlie whirled around on the spot, her gun raised and poised to shoot, but there was nobody. They'd known it was unnecessary to leave any soldiers behind – there was no possible way Miles Matheson would ignore their invitation.

* * *

Chaos reigned in the Patriot Camp as another bomb went off. Charlie was bumped and jostled as people ran all around her, shouting and abandoning their posts, but no one seemed to notice her. She slung her crossbow over her back – she'd had to use it to trigger the explosions – and took off at a dead run for Truman's tent. Miles had figured out that's where Gene and Rachel were being held and had gone in to get them while she provided the distractions. The scene that met her there would be burned into her memory until the day she died.

She skidded to a stop at the tent and yanked open the flap to find Truman and Miles in a standoff. Truman had the gun and Miles his sword, and Gene and Rachel were tied to chairs between them. But everything looked wrong, and it took her barely half a second to see why. "_No"_ she breathed. Her mom and grandpa both had blood coursing down their faces from the gaping bullet holes in their skulls. Her stomach pitched and she had to swallow the bile rising in her throat. Miles glanced over at her. "Charlie." He said, and she knew it was done. He was utterly defeated. She jumped when the gun went off and had her small knife in her hand even as Truman swung around. She let it fly and didn't wait to see it embed itself in his throat before she lunged for her uncle. "Miles!" she shouted, hoping and praying she got to him in time. But there was nothing she could have done. Truman's shot had found its mark in Miles' forehead.

A strange thing happened then. Despair was already clawing at her, threatening to overtake her completely, but when Truman let out a burbling cough on the other side of the tent, something cold and fierce was born in her. She slowly got to her feet, dragging Miles' sword up with her. Inexplicably, Truman had a smile on his face when she stood over him. She kicked the gun out of reach and bent low over him. "I _promise _you I will not rest until every single one of you are dead." He let out a gurgling laugh and she drove the sword into his belly, slicing him open until his intestines threatened to spill out. Then the moment was over and reality rushed back in. Distantly she realized that she needed to get out of the camp before the Patriots settled down and figured things out, but she couldn't just leave her family. She knelt beside Miles' body as the tears started to fall, dropping her forehead to his as she allowed herself just one moment of grief.

There was movement outside the tent, and Charlie could hear Miles' voice in her head telling her to get the hell out of there. She cast a forlorn look at her mother and grandfather, and took a deep, steadying breath. She knew what she needed to do. She had one explosive left, and after she lit the fuse, she cut a jagged hole in the edge of the tent with Miles' sword and took off at a run. She made it to the ridge before it went off, and when it did she stumbled and fell, and then threw up. She lay beside the puddle of vomit as the devastation hit, and she sobbed until there was nothing left in her.

She was alone now, truly.

* * *

**Central Texas – Present.**

"Where'd you learn that?"

Charlie didn't pause in her careful measuring. "My mom."

"Your mom taught you to make bombs?" Eva's voice was coloured with disbelief. "That's pretty badass. Or crazy," she added as an afterthought. Charlie finished the mixture and sealed the container tightly before moving on to the next one. "She was a bit of both," she acknowledged. It seemed like Eva wanted to press the subject, but one look from Charlie had her biting her tongue. "Ah. Well, could you show me how? It's a good skill to have."

Eva was a quick learner and soon they had an assembly line of sorts going. Charlie could tell that the other woman wanted to talk, but she suspected that Eva didn't know what to make of her. Nobody in the camp seemed inclined to warm up to her beyond a certain point, simply because Charlie made a concentrated effort to keep her distance. She sighed inwardly. "So how'd you get here?"

"Here, with this group? Same way we all did, I guess. By chance. The Patriots showed up in my town and overnight the place changed. Kids started 'enlisting'; they started enforcing rules that nobody wanted or needed, the usual. And when people protested, they mysteriously disappeared." She shook her head sadly. "Me and Rafe decided it was time to move on, and we slowly picked the others up along the way. I still can't believe how fast it all happened."

Charlie nodded. "We're fighting a losing battle."

Eva paused. "Why are you fighting then if you believe that?" Charlie shrugged, not perturbed by Eva's obviously idealistic view of things. "Because I want to take as many of them down with me as I can." There was a long stretch of silence, then, "Well these bombs will definitely help with that." They lapsed back into the quiet rhythm of work after that, but Charlie risked a glance across the table once or twice, and around the camp at the group she was with. These people had good intentions, but if they all shared Eva's view that they'd be able to make a difference and come out unscathed, they were delusional. Seven people who didn't expect that their actions would get them killed did not an army make. That thought planted in her mind, and after another week or so had sprouted, its roots tangling deep down in her.

By the time they passed through the next town, she'd made her decision. She'd intended to just slip away, but Luke screwed that plan up. There wasn't a Patriot occupation in this particular town, but she'd come across a pair of them travelling by horseback. Probably scouts, and if they didn't return to their base it would likely take anyone awhile to notice. So, while the rest of group had scattered to restock on supplies and grab a meal, Charlie made her move. She'd stalked the Patriot pair most of the afternoon, and when they came stumbling out of the tavern after a couple of hours to untether their horses, she buried an arrow in one of them and sliced the throat of the other, taking great satisfaction in the hot blood that sprayed over her hands in the process. There was a sewage ditch a couple hundred yards behind the tavern and she dragged the bodies there to dump them. She was just loading her gear onto one of the horses when Luke showed up. "Sarah?" Charlie cursed, but glanced over her shoulder. He was bewildered and maybe a little angry.

"Tell me you're not running away."

She put her foot in the stirrup and threw her leg over the saddle. "No, I'm not running. I'm moving on."

"That's bullshit. Moving on to what?"

Charlie sighed. She'd suspected that he liked her, and the betrayal in his voice now confirmed it. And it only reinforced in her that leaving was the best option. The last thing she needed or wanted was any personal entanglements. "Luke…my _only_ goal here is to destroy the Patriots, and this group just isn't going to accomplish that. I'm sorry," she added as an afterthought.

"And you're going to do a better job on your own?" he demanded angrily. She fixed him with a cool look. "Good luck, Luke. Sincerely." She didn't look back as she headed west. She had no intention of doing this on her own, she just need to back the winning horse.


	2. Chapter 2

"What I'd like to know," Connor said conversationally, not tearing his gaze from the barely-dressed woman perched on his knee, "Is how we've been on the road for six months, yet we're still in fucking Texas."

Sebastian Monroe glowered at his kid over the rim of his shot glass, but couldn't find the energy to contradict him. He was right. Texas had caught them in a stranglehold that was tightening by the minute. For every Patriot they cut down two more sprung up in its place, and it absolutely killed him to admit it, but Bass knew they were drowning. The three-man dream team he'd established with Connor and Tom Neville was not going to get his Republic back. To do that he needed his army.

No, he thought as he tossed back the shot, what he needed was Miles.

He didn't want to admit it, but part of the reason they hadn't made it out of Texas was that he hoped Miles would change his mind and join them on their crusade. He didn't want to admit that he was dragging his feet because a tiny, _miniscule _part of him wondered if that crusade was even worth it. The more time he spent with Connor, the more Bass realized his son's interest in regaining the Republic was shallow and more than a little fleeting. There was no conviction in him. He was along for the ride because _why the hell not_?

Connor let the whore lead him away from the table, and Bass only noticed in a detached sort of way as he looked to the bottom of his glass for all the answers. He ignored the voice at the back of his mind that told him he already knew what to do: turn the fuck around and go back home. Bass snorted at the thought. What home? Willoughby sure as shit wasn't his _home_… but Miles was there, and damn it, he missed his brother.

Because the memory of his last conversation with Miles still struck him like a punch to the gut, Bass threw back another couple of shots in an effort to wipe the whole thing from his mind. When that didn't work he considered finding a woman for the night, but even as the thought occurred to him he dismissed it. Heaving a sigh, he grabbed the bottle of whiskey and weaved his way through the crowd to the door. Halfway there he stopped short, so quickly it took a second for his mind to catch up to _why _he'd frozen. There was a blonde at the bar. He couldn't see her face, but the way she sat…deceptively relaxed yet ready to spring. He'd recognize that anywhere. There was no fucking way…

He approached slowly, taking in the way the guy beside her had his hand on her thigh, and how she leaned into him slightly. Bass paused, unsure now. There was no way _she _would put up with that shit. Then he watched her grab the hand on her leg and neatly remove it.

"Touch my leg again, _sweetheart_, and you'll get my knife in your hand."

Bass grinned – he couldn't help it. He decided to hang back a second to see how this played out. He knew that no matter how this situation went it would be entertaining, and that was something he desperately needed at the moment. He watched the guy eye the thin steak knife on Charlie's plate and then smirk. She noticed as well. "I'm not talking about that one." For the first time the guy seemed to notice both the sword and hunting knife on her belt. "That's a lot of hardware for a pretty little thing like you."

"Well, pretty little things like me need to protect ourselves."

The idiot smiled slyly and his fingers found her thigh again. Bass almost winced, and shook his head. Bad move. In a lightning-quick motion she'd grabbed her hunting knife and buried it in the idiot's hand. He screamed and yanked his hand back. "Crazy bitch!" Charlie fixed him with a dismissive look. "You were warned. Now fuck off."

Bass snorted, then slid into the now vacant seat. He motioned to the girl behind the bar. "For that, the lady deserves a drink." She dropped a shot before Charlie. "For that, this one's on me." Charlie lifted the glass in thanks, downed the whiskey like it was water, then finally turned to face him. She looked utterly unsurprised to see him. "You're losing your edge, Monroe. I've been here an hour already." He scarcely avoided gaping like an idiot. She was right, he _was _losing his edge. Then he narrowed his eyes as he connected the dots. "You tracked me down."

"Yes."

Well this was new. "And just why is that?" he drawled, leaning back against the bar. Usually when someone – especially someone like Charlie Matheson – specifically hunted him down, it was to bury a knife in his back. He scanned the crowded tavern for any other familiar faces. She rolled her eyes. "Nobody's here to kill you. At least, not anyone I know."

"Why _are _you here, Charlie?"

She hesitated, then did her own casual sweep of the place. "Let's take a walk."

"Yes, let's."

In a calculated move, Charlie walked ahead of him. A way of showing she wasn't going to attempt anything, he figured. The air outside the tavern was cool and the street was mostly deserted. A million things passed through his mind in the two minutes it took them to get out of earshot of anyone. She turned to him, her face void of any emotion. "There's no easy way to say this. You should know…Miles is dead."

All the air seemed to disappear from his lungs. His heart skipped a beat, then two, then clenched painfully. "What?"

"My mom and grandpa, too. The Patriots got them."

Bass gaped at her. She said it like she was describing the weather. A wave of rage crested in him and he found himself grabbing her throat and slamming her up against the building. "Don't you _dare_ tell me-" The anger abated just enough for him to notice the look in her eyes. They were flat and cold, and she seemed completely unperturbed by his attack on her. He snatched his hand back like she'd scalded him and dropped to the ground in crouch, burying his face in his hands. This wasn't possible. This was not fucking possible.

He didn't know how long he stayed like that, but eventually Charlie sat down next to him. "I want to burn every one of those motherfuckers to the ground," she said softly. "And you're the best way to do it."

He glanced over at her then. The cold, hollow look in her eyes had been replaced with the sort of fire he was intimately familiar with. That fire had consumed him when Shelley had died, and now it seemed it was about to be reignited.

* * *

Connor was in the process of putting his boots on when the door to the dingy room swung open. The whore who'd entertained him for an hour barely glanced up from counting her diamonds, but Connor bit off a curse as he scrambled for his gun. When he saw Charlie Matheson standing in the doorway, one eyebrow raised, he nearly blushed. Then he forgot his embarrassment at being so unprepared and grinned. "Charlie! What're you doing here?"

"Get yourself together. We've gotta go."

She didn't wait for him. When he caught up to her, she was at the bar collecting a few bottles of whiskey. Connor sighed inwardly – he was no stranger to tying one on, but these people took drinking to a whole new level. He found it tiresome. But he kept the easy smile on his face as he followed her out of the bar. "Seriously, what're you doing here? Where's everyone else?" He paused, remembering his father. "We should probably go find Monroe."

"He's at the camp."

"And you're planning a party?" he joked, nudging the bottles. This night was starting to get interesting – he'd missed Charlie these last few months. He expected her to roll her eyes and offer some snide comment about partying with his father, but instead she barely looked his way. "A wake."

"Excuse me?"

"A wake. Like after a funeral. I assume you're familiar with the concept."

"Who died?" Connor asked slowly, the amusement fading from his voice. If Charlie was here, something big must have happened back in Willoughby. "Miles?" He could only reasonably assume she'd shown up to share the news with his father, and he respected her for that. "Miles," she agreed. "My mother. My grandfather."

Connor's mouth fell open, and he cursed. "Shit, Charlie. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah."

"When did it happen?"

"A month after you left."

So she'd been on her own for the last five months or so. He couldn't comprehend what that might have been like for her. Charlie was the toughest woman he'd ever met, but he also knew how much her family meant to her. The rest of the walk to the campsite passed in silence. Connor spent most of that time studying her, and then worrying about the state he'd find his father in.

Monroe was drunk and devastated when they arrived. Charlie wordlessly handed over one of the bottles she'd brought and passed the others out to the fifteen or so guys they were travelling with. Many of them had followed Monroe from Willoughby and had known those that died. Charlie sat on the log his father occupied and clinked her bottle to the one in Monroe's hand. Connor noted how her eyes remained dry as she tipped her bottle back. She'd already grieved, he realized. And if she'd already gotten past the grief stage, then she was here for another reason. Connor joined her on the log, accepting the bottle she passed his way. "So what now?"

"Now we go to war."

"I thought we already had."

"No," his father interjected sharply, less drunk than Connor had initially thought. "We've just fired a few warning shots." Connor looked from Charlie to Monroe and recognized that they now shared the same sort of hunger. They were out for blood, he knew. He also knew that he wasn't just looking at his father anymore. He was looking at General Monroe.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I hated writing this chapter. It was reminiscent of writing essays back in school. I just couldn't get the juices to flow, and as a result I'm just saying the hell with it and posting as is. It's a transition chapter, but the good news is that I've worked out the direction this story is headed, so hopefully things will go more smoothly.**

**Thanks for the reviews, guys. Some of them were so encouraging that I have major performance anxiety now... so please be gentle!**

* * *

Bass was yanked into consciousness by a wave of icy water hitting his face. He reared up, coughing and spluttering, then grabbed his head as the pain registered. The midday sun speared his brain like a hot knife, and oily nausea pressed at the back of his throat.

"Rise and shine."

He squinted up at the voice through his fingers and found Charlie Matheson standing over him, an empty bucket at her feet.

"What. The. Fuck." He snarled. She raised her brow in that patented look of disdain he was certain she reserved just for him, and he pushed himself to his feet. The world tilted on its axis when he was upright, and he had to take a deep, steadying breath. Christ_ Almighty_, he hadn't been this hung over in a decade. "Was that really necessary?" he demanded, kicking the bucket aside.

"We've got work to do. And you could use a bath – though it'd probably take an ocean to get that stink off you."

He gaped at her, ignoring the fact that he could smell the alcohol seeping out of his pores. "Jesus, you really woke up on the bitch side of the bed today. Just what _work _is so damn important?"

"You already forgot? Note to self: a vat of whiskey and you lose your memory. That might come in handy someday."

If he hadn't been about to fall over, he would have smacked that sanctimonious look right off her face. He reflexively clenched his fists but tried to reign in his frayed patience as he caught up to her. "I'm sorry, I wasn't aware you expected me to destroy the Patriots twelve hours after you told me my best friend was dead." She clenched her jaw, obviously working up another insult to hurl at him, when he couldn't hold back anymore. He doubled over and proceeded to puke up about three bottles of whiskey at her feet.

When he didn't think there was anything left in him to come out, he spit out as much of the taste as he could and found a log to collapse on. In that very moment, he almost wished he was dead too. After a couple of minutes, he felt a nudge on his shoulder. When he moved the arm covering his eyes, he was both surprised and suspicious to see Charlie holding out a tin cup. "Here." He reluctantly accepted the cup of water, and she rolled her eyes. "I need you alive, remember? If I was going to kill you, it wouldn't be by poisoning your water."

"If you were going to _try _to kill me," he corrected her, and swished the water around in his mouth. She smirked, then held out her other hand. He recoiled at the sight of the silver flask, but she insisted. "Hair of the dog. It'll probably do the trick."

"Or give me alcohol poisoning." But he took a swig before the smell of the booze could register.

"I think that ship sailed hours ago. The fact that you had more whiskey than blood in you last night probably saved you from a concussion."

That had him at a loss. She noticed and touched a finger to her right eyebrow. He reached up to his own and winced when he felt the split skin and crusted blood. "I thought you needed me alive," he accused half-heartedly and took one more swig before handing her flask back.

"Hey, I _saved _you. If I hadn't been right there you'd have gone face first into the fire. Thanks to me when you passed out you just smacked your head on a rock."

"You couldn't be any more smug if you tried, could you?"

She was silent for a moment, then, "I did almost kill you once, you know. In New Vegas. If….that bounty hunter had grabbed you a _millisecond _later, you'd've had my arrow through your eye. Just so you know." Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a glimmer of amusement flit across her face, but it was gone too quickly to really tell. She certainly did manage to look that much more smug, however. He snorted. "Uh huh."

"Look, Monroe," she said, serious once again. "I'd really like to know what your plan is, for the Patriots."

"Charlie, just – give me the day, okay?"

She studied him for a long moment, then nodded once. As she walked away it occurred to him that he could have had that entire conversation with Miles, probably word for word. He could only imagine what his friend would have thought about Charlie showing up here, out for Patriot blood and obviously determined to use him to get it. Hell, he might've even been proud. Bass sighed as the ache in his chest got worse. "Goddamn it, Miles."

* * *

Charlie thought back over the last few days and she figured that her lifespan had become drastically shortened since she'd found Monroe. She never thought she'd make it out of this Patriot fight alive, but now she was concerned she wouldn't make it until the morning.

"You're still up."

She glanced up to see Monroe approaching, and she shrugged. "I don't sleep much. Especially now," she tilted her head in the direction of Tom Neville, who'd bunked down for the night on the opposite side of the camp. Since he'd shown up that morning, she figured she'd have to sleep with one eye open from now on. It had been a tense day, to say the least, beginning with Neville riding into camp after dawn and drawing Charlie into a little Mexican Standoff, bent on revenge. The last time they'd met he'd very nearly killed her, and divine intervention and an empty chamber were all that had saved her, so she hadn't been surprised to find herself staring down the barrel of his gun once again. She _had _been surprised to learn that Neville had been traveling with Monroe's group for the last several months, however.

"Thanks for the heads up, by the way," she said acerbically. "It would have been really nice to know that the person who wants me dead more than anyone in this world just so happens to be in this traveling circus of yours."

Monroe stared across the camp at Neville for a moment. "He's not going to kill you. He's got bigger things to worry about."

_Uh huh. _Charlie didn't believe that for a second. Monroe had ended their standoff this morning by threatening to kill the both of them if they didn't grow up and get over it. He'd been about as charming as a rabid badger, so they'd both been inclined to believe him. Now she wasn't so sure. Usually Monroe was an open book, but he was so wrapped up in grief over Miles that she was having a hard time gauging him. And as for Neville, there was no way he was going to _get over it_. She figured he was just going to bide his time. She sighed and turned her attention back to Monroe. "Do you want something?" It was well into the wee hours of the morning – not the time he'd usually pick for a chat.

"Tell me what happened to Miles."

"I told you. He got shot."

"Charlie…" he said warningly.

"Fine," she huffed. The last thing she wanted to do was dredge up the memories of the worst day of her life, but she knew he'd be only that much more difficult to deal with if she didn't lay it out for him. "You must be a real masochist," she mumbled. "Grandpa and Mom got snatched by the Patriots. Miles and I went to get them out-"

"Alone?"

"You were gone. Aaron and Priscilla were gone. Who else was there?" She paused and watched that sink into him. "So we went to get them out. I set off some explosives as a distraction and Miles went to find them. I caught up just in time to find my mom and grandpa with half their heads blown off and Miles giving up." It shocked her even as she said it, and it sure as hell didn't sit well with Monroe. "He _gave up_?" Monroe hissed dangerously. "There's no fucking way Miles just _gave up_. Especially not with you still there."

"He just – he was just _done._" She struggled to wrap her mind around the realization as it came to her. "All the fight was gone out of him. Maybe he thought I was already dead too, I don't know. But I'd guess when he found my mother like that… or maybe he even saw Truman shoot her... Maybe he figured there was no point after that."

She watched Monroe warily – he was pacing like a caged tiger, and she could feel the tension radiating off of him. Finally he stopped and turned toward her, and she took an involuntary step back. He had a wild, sort of feral look in his eyes. "Your _mother_-" he spat, and immediately her ire was put on boil. "Don't you say a word about my mother," she spat right back. They faced off, circling one another. Charlie's hand hovered over her belt, ready to grab her knife in an instant. Monroe could knock her out with one good punch, there was no question, but she was a damn fast draw. But even as she weighed the probabilities of who'd win this faceoff, she watched the anger seep out of him like a dam had burst.

"I should have been there," he said finally. "Damn it! If I'd been there this wouldn't have happened."

Charlie would never quite understand the connection between Monroe and her uncle, and a part of her didn't really want to, but in this moment she could see just how deep it went. She'd seen Monroe smug, arrogant, terrifying, charming – but this was the first time she'd seen him _lost_. She almost reached out to grasp his arm in some sort of comforting gesture, but she snapped back to reality in the nick of time. "Maybe," she agreed finally. "If you had been there maybe he wouldn't have died. Hell, maybe Mom and Grandpa would never have been grabbed in the first place."

She ignored the sheer disbelief on his face.

"Maybe if I'd given Jason just a few more seconds to snap out of it, I wouldn't have had to kill him." The memory still made her sick to her stomach, and she rode out the wave of sadness that always accompanied it. "Maybe if my parents had been just a little smarter – or stupider – none of this would have happened in the first place, and right now I'd be some naïve college student whose biggest worry was…whatever dumb college girls worried about."

"Your point?" he bit out.

She rolled her eyes. She figured her point was pretty obvious. "There's no point in making ourselves sick with what-ifs. What's done is done. All we can do now is try to survive long enough to make those Patriot bastards bleed." She could see the wheels turning in his mind, and she could see the instant something fell into place for him.

"How did you get out?"

"I gutted Truman like a fish, that's how." She still took great pleasure in the memory of him lying in the dirt trying to hold his guts inside his body. Monroe's brows inched upward in surprise, and for a moment he looked at her with a certain appreciation that had never been there before. She didn't understand the sudden satisfaction she felt at winning his approval, and she sure as hell didn't like it. "So, _General_, what's our next move?" Was it her imagination, or did his jaw tighten when she'd called him General? Well, that was interesting.

"The only way we can hope to win this is to cut the head off the snake," he said finally. She arched her brow in a _no shit, Sherlock _sort of way, and he scowled. "That means we take out the President. To do that we need an army and a shitload of firepower. It won't be easy getting to him." She pursed her lips. "Well I can only do so much about firepower. I'm running really low on the stuff I need to make bombs…and I've only ever made small ones anyway. But I might know where we can find some people." He looked extremely taken aback at that, and she rolled her eyes, more than a little offended. "You might have figured out by now that I'm not just here for my looks."

He almost smiled. "Fine. We'll leave at first light."

She nodded, considering the conversation over, but he hesitated as he turned to leave her. "I'm sorry about Gene. I liked the old man – he didn't deserve what he got. Neither did Rachel."

"I'm sorry about Miles," she replied quietly. As much as she'd loved her uncle, she knew his loss was infinitely harder on Monroe. They shared a moment of harmony then, and as he went to find his bunk Charlie had the oddest feeling that something had shifted between them. She tried to shake it off and get some sleep, but it plagued her until light streaked the sky.

* * *

As far as Connor was concerned, Charlie showing up had been a blessing. He figured that if Monroe had learned of Miles' death through some Texas grapevine, he might have gone completely off the handle. But something about Charlie bringing the news and her own vendetta had lit a fire under his father that had been lacking since they left Willoughby. Suddenly they had a plan to gather people, weapons, and to take out the US President. Somehow Charlie Matheson had flipped a switch in his father and had brought out the man that Connor had assumed he'd left Willoughby with. The man who wanted to get his Republic back. Sure, there'd been no mention of that yet, but things were definitely back on track.

He paused in cleaning his guns when Tom Neville wandered over to join him beside the fire. He accepted the jerky Tom offered with a nod of thanks. "You know," Neville said thoughtfully, pulling apart his own weapon to clean it. "I majored in English in University, with a minor in Psychology, and I can tell you that Shakespeare and Freud both would wet their pants over that situation." He waved a hand in the direction of Monroe and Charlie, who were sparring with their swords. Every so often Monroe would stop and criticize her, and then offer some advice on improving her technique. Mostly she looked like it would be the high point of her life if she could draw some of his blood. "What do you mean?" Connor had never read Shakespeare, and had never heard of Freud. Tom smirked and shook his head. "Never mind."

Connor liked Tom. More than that, he respected him. And where Connor came from, respect was one of the most important things in a man's life. Tom was smart, methodical, and cunning. He was the kind of man Connor wanted fighting on his team when it came to winning back the Monroe Republic and then some. The hatred Tom had for Charlie could prove problematic, though he had managed to reign it in for the time being. Connor considered them equally valuable, but for different reasons, so he intended to watch that situation carefully. He'd thrown away his entire life to follow Monroe; to reclaim his supposed birthright. He'd be damned if he'd let some petty squabble over the death of a single person derail all those plans.

"You look like a man with a lot on his mind," Neville commented casually. Connor knew that not a word came out of that man's mouth without a reason behind it, so he smiled easily and shrugged. "Aren't we all?"


	4. Chapter 4

"They're back."

At Connor's announcement, Bass looked up from the map he and Neville were poring over in time to see the hunting party ride into camp. They were deep in Patriot territory now and he hadn't wanted anyone to go hunting, but Charlie had stated baldly that they were all starving and were going whether he liked it or not. He did a quick headcount and felt some of the tension ease when he spotted her amongst the group. He hadn't realized it until she'd left, but somewhere along the way he'd come to consider her his responsibility. Miles might not have liked that it was him, but Bass knew his old friend would have wanted _someone_ watching her back.

"Looks like they got a buck," Connor said, his voice heavy with appreciation, and abandoned their strategy session to go help the guys haul it in. Bass watched his son exchange a few words with Charlie, then as she turned her horse in his direction. "I see you managed to not get yourself killed," he remarked as she pulled the horse to a stop next to him.

"Like I'd give you the satisfaction."

He frowned when he saw the dark smears of blood on her shirt and jacket. "Run into trouble?" She jerked a shoulder and turned in the saddle to slice the ropes that were holding a large bundle on the back of the horse. She used the heel of her boot to shove it off and he had to take a step back as if fell heavily to the ground. "Not much."

Bass yanked back the edge of the blanket to find an unconscious Patriot soldier. He had a bloody goose egg on his temple and two of Charlie's arrows buried in him – one just above his knee, one through his shoulder. _Well, well. _He rocked back on his heels and met Charlie's eyes in silent question. "He was alone. Thought he might be useful. He tried to run," she added, the barest hint of a smirk curling her lips as she glanced at the arrow in her prisoner's leg.

"Can't argue with that." Once again, Charlie had managed to surprise him. She'd done that a lot lately, truth be told. It unsettled him and impressed him in equal measure. She gathered up the reigns and glanced over at Neville. "You might want to do the questioning," she suggested blandly. "I doubt he'd last long enough with him." She wasn't wrong; Neville's hatred for the Patriots had grown steadily and had surpassed even Charlie's loathing for them.

"Thanks. I hadn't figured that one out for myself."

She rolled her eyes and led the horse away, not gracing the Patriot she'd captured with a second thought. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something about that exchange didn't sit well with him. He had more pressing concerns, however, so he shoved the thought aside and hauled the Patriot up by the front of his shirt. Charlie had really done a number on him – he was still unconscious, and there was ugly black bruising around the temple wound. He wondered fleetingly if the guy would live long enough to interrogate at all. "Tom, give me a hand, would you?" As Tom threw the Patriot's arm over his shoulder, the prisoner started to groan and come around. Bass felt a grim sort of anticipation. "Morning Sunshine. Let's chat, you and I."

* * *

"Do you enjoy that?"

Bass paused in cleaning the blood off his knife. The exasperation was already starting to build, but when he realized that Charlie seemed to be genuinely curious, he answered truthfully. "Not usually."

Bass didn't enjoy torture. Contrary to what Rachel had always believed, he found torturing people left him sick to his stomach. His hands used to shake after he'd finished with someone, for whatever reason, but over the years he'd managed to steady his hands and bury the guilt in the deepest, darkest part of himself. This time, however, was the exception. Bass had relished the opportunity to take out every ounce of anger he possessed over Miles' death on that soldier, and had him singing like a canary inside fifteen minutes.

Now, and not for the first time, he wished he could see inside Charlie's head. She'd sat outside the tent with the rest of the men while he'd gone to work on the soldier. She'd heard him scream and plead for his life and beg for mercy, and for a moment when he'd walked out of that tent, he hadn't wanted to look at her. He'd forcefully reminded himself that she'd had to know what she was getting herself into – hell, she'd _brought_ him the soldier for the express purpose of being questioned. When he caught her eyes as he walked by, he'd been relieved to see acceptance in them, and surprised to see a hint of…what? Satisfaction? No, _approval_. The exchange between them lasted half a second, but something about it had knocked him off-kilter, just like when she'd handed over the soldier in the beginning. And now, here she was asking him if he liked torture in the same tone she might ask his favourite colour. He had a sudden vision of _her _wielding the knife, and he shifted uncomfortably. "I do it when it needs to be done," he elaborated shortly. "That's it." She seemed to accept that at face value and didn't push the subject any further. "What'd you find out?"

"There's a Patriot armory just outside of Cherry Hill." The soldier had informed him that it wasn't heavily guarded, so if the information was true they'd stumbled into one hell of a goldmine. "Now we're just waiting on this Resistance of yours," he said pointedly. When she'd told him she knew where they could find an army, or at least some soldiers, he'd been reluctant to believe her. When she'd filled him in on the Anti-Patriot movement, he'd grown even more skeptical. He wanted mercenaries or ex-soldiers, not Ma and Pa Kettle.

"They'll find us," she said curtly.

"Oh, well that's convenient."

"You could always call up your Militia." There was that disdain again. "Oh, _wait_…"

Christ, he wanted to throttle her sometimes. And she knew it too – otherwise she wouldn't go out of her way to be half as antagonistic. His hand clenched the handle of his knife and her eyes flashed, and goddamn it if he didn't almost start laughing. Connor and one of the guys, Colin, approached. "We took care of the body. What's the plan?"

"Saddle up, boys," he said, feeling slightly buoyed. "We've got a robbery to commit."

* * *

"I don't like this."

Bass had to agree with Neville's assessment of the situation. The 'armory' was nothing more than a ramshackle old farmhouse that looked abandoned. There were no guards posted outside, or anything else in fact to indicate it was a Patriot stronghold. He couldn't imagine that the soldier he'd questioned had had it in him to lie, not after what Bass had put him through, but there was nothing about this that wasn't suspicious.

"Why would the Patriots have this so close to the capital?" Connor wondered aloud. "There are Rangers all over the place."

Texas hadn't quite given in to the Patriots' wooing yet. They were damn close to signing some sort of agreement, but the State hadn't become such a powerhouse nation by treading blindly. Not to mention the Rangers possessed an astronomical amount of Texan pride, and he'd learned that more than a few of them weren't too pleased with the US Occupation. "It's not a bad idea," he said quietly as he scanned the surrounding area. "Keep a cache of weapons close enough to use at a moment's notice, but not in such an obvious place they'd be easily discovered."

They surrounded the place and closed in, and things happened pretty quickly after that. They kicked in the door to find four Patriot soldiers playing cards at the kitchen table. They were grossly unprepared for the onslaught of Bass' men and they barely got a chance to draw their weapons before they were dead on the floor. Some of the guys searched the upstairs and the rest of the house and came up empty, but it was Charlie who drew their attention to the basement. At the foot of the stairs there was another door, and Bass arrived just as Charlie was yanking her sword from the guard's chest.

"Don't just charge in there," Bass warned. For an armory there were a significant lack of guards, which was troubling. The possibilities of what awaited them on the other side of the door were endless, and most of them gruesome. Charlie waved her arm dramatically. "After you, General."

It rankled him that she'd taken to calling him that.

But he'd worry about that later. Now, with every second that passed, that bad feeling he had only got worse. Charlie yanked open the door and he had the trigger on his gun halfway depressed and ready to fire. But he found nothing – nothing but weapons. "Holy shit," one of the guys commented in awe. Bass had to agree. He hadn't seen this kind of weapons collection since he'd last set foot in his own armory in Philly. "In and out," he ordered. "Fast." The men started loading up with guns and ammunition.

When he saw the row of metal canisters with a yellow cross stamped on the front, Bass felt his gut sink like a stone. Mustard gas. It was mustard gas that had been the catalyst for _all _of this – it had caused the fight he'd had with Miles that had forced him to leave Willoughby. This situation was rotten from every angle. Why the hell would the Patriots leave a stash of mustard gas so poorly guarded? "Let's get a move on, guys. Take whatever you can carry at this point. We need to get the hell out of here."

"Monroe."

Charlie had pulled the top off a wooden crate. He couldn't read the look on her face – confusion maybe? He peered into the crate and felt his heart leap. There were rows of whitish-gray brickettes labelled C4. "Fuck me," he breathed. "Plastic explosives," he explained to Charlie. They required detonators, but he'd be damned if he left these behind. They'd figure it out later. He grabbed a case and passed it off to Colin. "Get the rest of these."

"I'm not comfortable with this," Tom said seriously, and Bass knew he didn't mean taking the explosives. Tom obviously thought it was too dangerous to stick around any longer. There was something they'd missed, he was sure of it. Nobody left a bunker of military grade explosives and mustard gas under the protection of a handful of yokels in uniform. "Let's go. Now."

* * *

Charlie was at the back of the line as the men hurried up the stairs, laden with weapons and crates. She could understand why Monroe had ordered everyone out, but it was a damn shame to not pick this place clean. This sort of arsenal was exactly what they needed to get a leg up on the Patriots. Heaving a sigh, she stepped over the body of the guard she'd killed and followed Monroe up the stairs. When she hesitated at the top of the steps, she couldn't figure out why at first. Monroe didn't look back as he rushed out the door, and then she was alone in the place, and that's when she heard it. A weird sort of clicking sound.

She couldn't ignore it. It was such a _foreign_ noise. She raised her gun up and slowly crept toward the kitchen. None of the four guards had survived the attack – one of them even still had cards in his hand – so it wasn't them, but it was definitely coming from that room.

There. They hadn't noticed it earlier, but there was a small pantry in the corner. When she opened it she found a table with some sort of box on it. When she got close enough she saw it had several dials with numbers, and the last one was winding down. As the numbers steadily dropped from thirty, her eyes travelled to the wires connecting the box to the wall, then to the whitish-gray putty along the seams.

It all came together in an instant. She sucked in a breath. "Oh shit."

* * *

The men cleared the doorway and headed for the treeline and the wagon they'd stashed there. Bass took up the rear, and just as Connor disappeared into the trees ahead of him, something in the air changed. He felt the shockwave before he heard the blast, and when the house exploded behind him, he was lifted off his feet and thrown into the brush like a lawn dart.

He hit the trunk of a tree hard enough to knock him out, and when he came to a few moments later, Bass couldn't figure out what had happened. The men were yelling, but he couldn't hear them right. Everything was muffled. Then he saw the blaze that had been the farmhouse and everything was thrown into sharp relief. Bass was on his feet in an instant, frantically searching the group for his son. "Connor!" he shouted, and remembered that he'd seen Connor go into the woods ahead of him.

Connor appeared at his side. "I'm here. I'm alright. Come on!"

It made sense now, the lack of guards. They'd obviously had the place rigged to blow. He was going to kill whoever tripped the detonator. They stumbled through the woods to the camp, and Bass' vision darkened around the edges several times. The blow to his head must have been bad – a concussion at least. They made it into the camp, but only just barely before the darkness overwhelmed him and he crumpled to the ground. When he resurfaced into consciousness, it was to the swaying rhythm of the wagon he'd been laid out in. He sat up slowly and tried to get his bearings. Connor was trudging alongside the wagon looking grim. "You're up."

"How long have I been out?" His voice was hoarse and his throat felt like it was on fire. Smoke inhalation probably.

"Almost an hour, I'd say. How're you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a fucking train. We lose anyone?"

Connor hesitated. "Tony."

"…and?" The kid had no poker face. It was plain as day that he wasn't saying something. The silence stretched, and Connor wouldn't meet his eyes. Finally one of the guys driving the wagon, Derek, spoke up. "Charlie never showed up."

One beat. Then two, and Bass turned slowly. "What?"

"I haven't seen her since we were in that basement," Derek elaborated nervously.

Something cold and icy gripped Bass' heart as he scanned the group of weary men. Charlie wasn't there. Had _he _seen her since the basement? He could have sworn he was the last one out… no. No, he remembered now that she'd been right on his heels coming up the stairs, and then he'd lost track of her. He whirled around in the direction of the house, and even in the dark he could see the thick black smoke stretching into the sky. "And you left her there?"

None of them tried to explain themselves, but a detached part of him knew that in that moment of pandemonium it would have been an easy choice for most of them. Either they hit the road and make a clean getaway, or they go back for one person and risk getting captured or killed.

He didn't pause to think, he just grabbed a gun from the pile they'd collected and jumped off the wagon. Connor grabbed his arm to stop him and Bass yanked it back. "I'm not leaving her behind," he snapped. There was no possible scenario in which he didn't go back for her. For one, he didn't leave any man behind if he could help it, and two, he _owed _her. If it hadn't been for her, he'd have been dead and buried outside Willoughby by lethal injection. She'd been the one to convince Rachel to save him. Not to mention she was Miles' niece. And, hell, she was _Charlie_. There was no fight without her.

"No," Connor was exasperated. "I'll go with you."

"No." As anxious as he was to get back to the blast site, he still managed to think straight. "You stay. If the Patriots grab me, I'll need someone to get me out. Colin, Derek, you're with me. The rest of you get the hell out of here. We'll find you."

"Goddamn, I hope she got out of there," Derek said quietly as they hurried back through the woods. The guys in the group all liked Charlie, and they respected her. As far as they were concerned, she was one of them. Bass ignored the churning in his stomach. If he'd gotten her killed…. He forced the thought away as they approached the treeline and stopped short. As one the three of them dropped down behind a fallen log.

"How'd they get here so fast?"

The place was already swarming with Patriots and civilians alike. Bass let loose a steady stream of curses as another reality hit him. Either Charlie was dead or she was now in the custody of the enemy. If it was the latter case, they needed to make their move now or risk losing track of her for good. He was just working up a plan when Colin got a strange look on his face. "What?" Bass demanded, impatient. Colin reached up to his neck and pulled a small dart out of his skin. "What the hell?" he said, and then his eyes rolled back and he dropped face-down into the dirt. Derek did the same on Bass' other side. In a heartbeat, he found himself on the business end of three different rifles. "Just fucking perfect," he sighed.

* * *

When the burlap sack was yanked from his head he recoiled at the light and strained against the ropes tightly binding his wrists, prepared for the worst. Torture, probably. It usually came down to that. After he'd been trussed up and tossed in the back of a wagon, Bass had spent the journey weighing his options. He'd estimated that they'd gone about ten miles, and he had no clue _who_ had grabbed him. He hadn't seen any brown uniforms on his captors, but that didn't mean squat. Connor and the rest of the men still thought he was searching for Charlie, and who knows how long it would be before they realized something was up. He wondered why he hadn't been drugged like Colin and Derek, and he worried over the fact that his window to finding Charlie had effectively slammed shut.

When he'd been marched into what he assumed was a prison cell, he'd spent that time trying to plan his escape so he could get back to his search. But when his blindfold was removed and he found himself in somebody's kitchen face-to-face with a woman that could have been his mother's age, all his plans evaporated. He glanced around, taking stock of possible exits and weapons, and waited for her to make the first move. She was comfortably round with iron gray hair pulled into a knot, and wore an old plaid shirt and threadbare jeans. Not exactly what he'd expected of his captor. He jerked back when she came at him, but stopped when the rifle jammed into his spine. To his great surprise, she pulled on the skin under his eyes to get a look at his lids.

She was looking for a number.

It only got weirder after that. She nodded once to one the guys who'd grabbed him, and after a moment of slicing, the ropes binding Bass' wrists were severed and he was free. "So." He said expectantly. She frowned. "I'd appreciate it if you refrained from going after my guys. You're free to leave whenever you want." He snorted. "And why exactly would you go to all this trouble bringing me here just to let me go?" She gave him a long once-over and jerked her shoulders up in a shrug. "I wanted a look at the jackass that blew up that armory."

"That wasn't exactly the plan I had going in there," he said, annoyed. "I'm guessing that you're not Patriots, so why should you care?"

"That's my business. Right now you should be a little more concerned about _your_ business, Sebastian Monroe."

Of course. _Of course_ Betty Crocker here knew who he was – why shouldn't she? It wasn't as if he hadn't been declared dead in the eyes of Texas months ago or anything. Any scrap of patience he had left over this farce evaporated. "Lady, just what the fuck do you want from me?" She didn't flinch at his tone, and tipped her head in the direction of the room next door. "Follow me." What choice did he have at this point? He followed. She threw open the door and crossed her arms. "I think this belongs to you."

_Charlie_.

There was a long dining table in the room, and she was lying atop it face-down and stripped to the waist. He shoved past the old woman to approach the table and recoiled at the sight that met him. Her back was mincemeat. He couldn't see a square inch of skin under all the blood. There was a dark-haired woman on the other side of the table using long steel tweezers to pluck the shrapnel out of her back. "It's not as bad as it looks," she commented, and yanked out an inch-long piece of wood.

Something reared up in him at the sight of her on that table, bloody and torn up. He hadn't felt fear in so long that he almost didn't recognize it, but when he did, he swallowed heavily. "Jesus," he spluttered. At the sound of his voice, Charlie glanced up from the table and grimaced. "It's about damn time." There was pain in her eyes, and anger, and _relief. _He didn't know what to do with the emotion bubbling up in him, so he fell back on his old standard: sarcasm. "So not only do you get yourself blown up, but you get us both captured too. Good job."

Charlie struggled to push herself up from the table, but was forced back down by the woman with the tweezers. "Stay still or I tie you down. Your choice." She ignored the threat. "Are you _serious_? Let me up. I'm going to kill him."

Relief flooded through him. If she was in the mood to make threats on his life, she wasn't nearly as bad off as she looked.

"Maybe if you'd done your homework neither of you would be here," commented the old woman from behind him. He scowled but he couldn't argue, as much as he wanted to. "As it is you're lucky we were watching you. If we hadn't grabbed her when you ran, she'd likely be dead by now."

"You _left _me," Charlie accused from the table after a pregnant pause. Bass wanted kill the old woman for saying it, he really did, but he realized that dealing with Charlie was the more pressing issue. She sounded pissed, but underneath that there was a note of betrayal, and it was that that hit him the hardest. "I didn't leave you. It was chaos – everyone was all over the place. I passed out, and the minute they told me you were gone I went back for you. Couldn't have been more than a couple of hours behind the Partridge Family here. And just who the fuck are these people anyway?"

Charlie snorted. She seemed to accept his explanation well enough, and then, unexpectedly, her mouth turned up into a smug smile. "I told you they'd find us."

Well _vive la resistance_.

The woman with the tweezers yanked one last shard of metal out of Charlie's back and she hissed uncomfortably. "Okay," the doctor said. "Now for the hard part. I'm going to have to disinfect these wounds and stich more than a few of them up. It's going to hurt like hell."

Bass scowled. "Don't you have any painkillers you can give her?"

"She refused them."

Bass opened his mouth to tell Charlie not to be a hero and take the damn drugs when he noticed her white-knuckle grip on the edge of the table. She was afraid, he realized. She didn't want to take the drugs because god knows what they could do to her if she was knocked out. He recalled that incident in the bar outside Vegas when she'd been drugged and he'd had to save her. He crouched down to meet her at eye level and he gave one of her hands a quick squeeze. "I'm here, Charlie. You know I won't let anything happen."

She gave him a long, searching look. "Fine," she said abruptly. The doctor put together a syringe and he sat on the floor so she could see him, and so he didn't have to look at her wounds. "Everyone else make it out?" she asked, barely acknowledging the needle as it slid into her arm. He shook his head and told her about Tony, and noted that her eyes were starting to glaze over. "Oh. What about the weapons? Tell me we didn't lose them."

He couldn't help but grin at that. Even with her back torn to ribbons from an explosion she'd barely escaped, Charlie managed to keep her eye on the prize. "We got them."

"Good." Her voice was slurring now, and she shot him a narrow look. "Don't do that."

"What?"

"Smile at me like that."

His grin only got wider, against his will, and he chuckled. "Why not?"

She never got a chance to explain, though, as the drug took hold and her head dropped back to the table. The doctor got to work on Charlie's back but he stayed where he was awhile longer. His smile turned serious as he studied her. He moved a few strands of her blood-soaked hair out of her face and noted she was more relaxed than he'd seen in a long time – ever, really. The only time he'd ever seen her so worry-free was the last time she'd been drugged in his presence. He'd spent that day focused on how to convince her to bring him back to Miles, though. Nothing else had crossed his mind then.

It was amazing how vastly things had changed.

"Thought I lost you for a minute, kid," he said quietly, knowing she couldn't hear. "Don't do that to me again."

* * *

He'd stayed by her side until the doctor, Annabeth, had finished her work, and once Charlie was resting comfortably Bass found himself on the back porch with nothing but his demons for company. He'd snagged Charlie's flask from her mangled jacket and wished for a bottle twice its size. Now that the fuss had died down, a bone deep weariness had set in. This hellish day had lasted an eternity and his body was screaming for sleep, but his mind wouldn't let him rest.

He'd nearly lost his entire team because he'd been too reckless and desperate to get his hands on something that would have been useless without this men to wield them.

He'd nearly gotten them all killed. The men. Connor and Charlie.

She'd trusted him, and had nearly died because of it.

She trusted him.

It was that more than anything else that was playing on a loop in his head. _Nobody _trusted him – not Miles, sure as hell not Rachel or Gene, and he had his suspicions about Connor. But somehow (and he was having a hard goddamn time wrapping his mind around this one) Charlie did. He knew she'd have gone into that house whether he'd been there or not, but back in that room with the doctor she'd believed in him enough to take the sedatives. She'd believed that he would protect her if things went south.

"Penny for your thoughts."

Bass blinked himself back into the present to see the old woman at the foot of the steps, leaning against the railing. "Guess I owe you one," he said instead. There was no way he'd be spilling his secrets tonight. She pursed her lips and crossed her arms. "I'd say so. She's important to you." It wasn't a question, it was a shrewd observation.

_Yes_. He didn't know when or how or why, but Charlie had come to mean something to him. He just didn't know what yet. "She's my responsibility."

"Mmhmm. Well, Mr. Monroe, you look like a stiff wind could knock you over. Get some rest, and in the morning we can talk Patriots and how best to get rid of them. You can take the couch, or there's some floor space in your girl's room. Whatever you like." She moved past him up the stairs to head inside.

"Hey, uh…"

"Liv. My name's Liv."

"Right. Thanks."

He didn't see her smirk in the dark, but he could hear it in her voice. "And here I was led to believe Sebastian Monroe wasn't aware that word existed. Glad to hear I was misinformed."

Bass sat outside just long enough to watch the sky begin to lighten as dawn approached. When he went inside he eyed the couch wearily, then sighed and headed up the stairs. He didn't know these people and he barely trusted them. He wasn't going to let Charlie wake up alone in a strange room feeling those same things. There was a bedroll on the floor of her room and he only had a moment to wonder when he'd become so predictable before sleep claimed him.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks. I was on vacation with no computer access. Also I feel I should mention that I never know what I'm going to write until I sit down to do it, so I'm hoping things aren't too disjointed (and that I'm portraying in this chapter what I hoped to).**

* * *

The men treated Charlie like a conquering hero when they reunited with her, and Connor knew that a lot of that came from the guilt of abandoning her the night of the explosion. He was no exception, and when they arrived at Liv's farm two days later, he could barely look her in the eye. Nobody admitted that it had been his call to leave her behind, and it didn't seem like she was holding a grudge against anyone, but he was still waiting for someone to let the cat out of the bag.

Charlie had just gotten her stitches out and had hiked up her shirt to show the guys the roadmap of angry pink lines that would turn into scars. The men were suitably impressed and she'd seemed _proud_. Naturally that instigated a game of 'whose is bigger', and now everyone was sitting in a circle showing off their war wounds. Even Monroe had joined in, and while he had a lot of scars to show, he didn't bring up the marks he'd gotten from the whipping Connor had administered back in Mexico. Connor hung back from the crowd under the guise of watering the horses, and watched from afar. "You don't want to join in the fun?" Tom asked from his spot under a tree, his voice dripping with contempt.

"I'm not in the mood for show and tell." The group burst out laughing over some story or another, and Connor turned away. The truth was he didn't _have _anything to show and tell. There was none of this Wild West shit in Mexico. There were _rules_, and for most of his life he'd been untouchable because of who he was. He actually felt ashamed of his unmarked skin, and that made him angry. Why should he be made to feel inferior simply because he hadn't lived a savage life? He took a deep, calming breath and reminded himself that if any of them thought he was weak, it would only be to his advantage. He may not have had to fight for his life, but he'd led a brutal one just the same. He turned his back on the group and focused his attention on Neville. "So what do you make of all this?" Tom put his book down and looked around. "It's a step in the right direction."

Two days after the explosion, Colin and Derek had tracked them down, and they'd been accompanied by a couple of former mercenaries who worked for an Anti-Patriot named Liv. According to Derek, Liv's people had rescued Charlie and had brought Monroe back to her place as well. It was a clever operation: an Anti-Patriot operation disguised as a farm. The place was halfway between Austin and Cherry Hill, and actually was a working farm. People came through constantly to buy vegetables and meat, so no one was ever suspicious at the amount of foot traffic the place attracted. Liv was extremely well connected and all week long there'd been a revolving door of informants and resistance fighters passing through her place.

Connor agreed with Tom that it was a step in the right direction. Now they had the weapons and connections for an army, such as it was. It had given them a fighting chance at the very least, so now all they needed to do was actually fight something. There'd been a lot of discussion and strategizing in Liv's little war room, but so far nobody had agreed on how or when to take action, and Connor was getting mighty impatient. It had been a year already since he'd left Mexico with Monroe on the promise of the Republic, but they were no closer to that now than the day he'd left home.

Annabeth, the lovely doctor, called over to them for some help bringing dinner out. Several of the guys were on their feet in an instant. They were the living proof that a man's heart was won through his stomach, and since Annabeth had them eating like kings, they were all half in love. Connor was no exception so he made sure to snag the seat next to hers at the table. "So you grew up in Mexico, is that right?" she asked as she passed around the salad bowl. "How on earth did you get mixed up in all of this?" Connor's gaze flickered down the table towards Monroe. He looked to be having a fairly serious conversation with Charlie and Liv, and for a moment Connor had to work hard to quash the resentment. He cleared his throat. "Monroe and a couple of his buddies brought me back to Texas. Travelling with them made this fight hard to avoid."

Annabeth looked perplexed. "Who'd want to leave Mexico? Did he kidnap you or something?"

"No. No, I came willingly." _God knows why. _"I sort of burned some bridges back home anyway."

"Because of him?" she guessed. Connor appreciated that she was smart, but he wished she wasn't so astute about this subject. "Yeah. He's my father," he admitted finally. Her jaw nearly hit the table it dropped so fast. "You're _kidding_. Wow. That's… got to be tough."

"You have no idea," he muttered, then slapped on his most charming smile. "But I'm more interested in you. What's your story?"

For the rest of the meal they traded histories. Connor gave her only the barest sketch of his upbringing and she went on about how she'd fallen in with Liv and where she'd learned to be a doctor. There was a good amount of flirtation thrown in and Connor was feeling pretty positive about his chances, so naturally something happened to throw a wrench in the works. The meal was just winding down when a man and a woman rushed up the lane in a panic.

"Liv!" The woman was in tears. Liv was on her feet in an instant. "What is it?"

"It's David," said the man. "They've taken him. Those Patriots are taking him to some boot camp."

Connor could only assume David was this couple's son, and he got the gist of things pretty quickly. The kid had decided to 'enlist' with the Patriots, which his parents thought was an idiotic move, and he was bound for boot camp on a train scheduled to leave later that evening. "There's got to be twenty kids from town on that train," the woman said. "We have to stop them, Liv. Please." Connor knew that by 'we', the woman meant Liv and her men, and he abandoned Annabeth to join his father. The parents might have no idea what a Patriot boot camp consisted of, but everyone else did. Monroe and Charlie were having one of those silent conversations they were prone to – sharing a wealth of information in just a few looks – and Connor wanted to growl in frustration. This was the perfect opportunity to launch their battle with the Patriots. "What are we waiting for?" he demanded.

"We have no idea what we're walking into," Monroe said finally.

"That doesn't matter," Tom said from somewhere behind him. "We're going to stop that train."

"He's right," Charlie agreed firmly. Connor knew she was probably thinking of Jason, and so was Tom. It was the only thing in the world the two of them agreed on. Monroe looked furious for a second, then threw up his hands. "Fine."

* * *

The Cherry Hill train station was a ramshackle little place that usually did its best business twice a week when the mail came through. Tonight it was overrun with men and women in brown uniforms, and a handful of eager young kids who had no clue their lives were about to end. Liv's men knew the area well so they'd taken point, and the rest of them were waiting in the surrounding woods for the signal. Charlie was impatient. Excitement and adrenaline were churning in her stomach, and the second she'd got a glimpse of those brown uniforms she'd had to resist the urge to pull out her sword and run in swinging. There was nothing she wanted more after almost two weeks of invalidity than a good fight.

Monroe materialized next to her out of the shadows, but she barely blinked. Since the explosion he'd been sticking closer to her than usual and she figured he was feeling guilty for leaving her behind. She knew it wasn't his fault, but she liked to see him squirm nonetheless. He'd probably made some kind of pact with Miles' memory to babysit her, which she thought was foolish, but she couldn't bring herself to burst his bubble so she let him hover.

Truthfully, she didn't mind _that _much. The wall that stood between them had been slowly eroding since he'd rescued her in that bar outside Vegas, and it had positively crumbled since she'd tracked him down after leaving Willoughby. She didn't give too much thought as to _why_, but if she were asked she'd have guessed it was due to their mutual vendetta against the Patriots. And now, possibly the guilt thing. Whatever. She didn't like to overthink things.

Ahead of them, a Patriot soldier wandered into sight. He looked bored and he was alone. Charlie couldn't help it – she started forward, intent on destruction. Unfortunately, Monroe grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back. "Charlie, _wait_. Just wait for the signal." She scowled, but didn't try to move again. It was as she was glaring at the Patriot's back that she slowly came to realize Monroe hadn't released his grasp on her waist. It was such a small thing, really. Completely insignificant. He was probably distracted and didn't even notice, but suddenly she couldn't ignore the heat of his hand on her abdomen. She should have been appalled; she should have driven her elbow into his gut. She should have done just about any other thing than what she actually did.

She leaned back into him. The logical part of her brain warned her to throw on the brakes and get the hell out of there, but she was running on pure instinct at that point. When her newly healed back made contact with his chest, the sense of gratification nearly overwhelmed her. God, how long had it been since she'd actually _touched _someone? Connor had been the last person she'd slept with, and that had been months ago, but the very last time she'd actually had simple physical contact with another person…she couldn't remember. Maybe a hug from her Grandpa? The Mathesons were not a touchy-feely bunch, but she was confident she'd hugged her Grandfather at least once since returning from Vegas. An unexpected lump rose in her throat and she battled with the emotion for a second.

_Fuck it_, she thought. She was going to enjoy the feeling of another warm body pressed against hers, no matter who it belonged to. Then Monroe did something that changed the game completely. After a moment of neither of them pulling away, he stroked the bare inch of skin exposed above her belt with his thumb. It was another tiny thing that could have been nothing. Hell, he could have just had a twitch, but it sent a whole different kind of awareness ricocheting through her. She was stunned, and confused, and tingling and a little turned on, all from something that was probably nothing, and all at the hand of Sebastian Monroe. She turned her head just enough to feel his breath on her cheek and was too afraid to ask out loud what the hell was going on, so they stood like that for what seemed an eternity.

The sudden burst of gunfire had her jumping out of her skin. That was their signal. She didn't dare look at Monroe as they both raced ahead. When she reached the Patriot soldier at the treeline she drove her sword through his back and for a while forgot all about what had just happened. Pandemonium had erupted on the train platform as the resistance fighters descended from all sides. Charlie quickly realized that this wasn't going to be a cut and dried rescue mission. The kids they were here to 'save' thought the Patriots were the good guys, so they were fighting right alongside their so-called brethren. Luckily they were all terrible so it wasn't too hard to subdue them without causing much injury. She'd just knocked one of them out with the butt of her gun when one of their guys, Ronan, took a bullet next to her. He went down hard, and Charlie swung around to see that one of the kids had fired the shot. He looked shocked, but was struggling with the gun to get another round off.

Well they weren't all innocent, she reasoned as she took the kid down. There were bound to be a few casualties on all sides. Across the platform she saw Monroe taking on three Patriots with just his sword and his fists, and another two were advancing on him from behind. She lined up her shot and nailed one of them, but she ran out of ammunition before she could get the second one. She didn't stop to think, she just dropped the gun and hurled herself at the soldier. She jumped on his back and dragged her knife across his throat. Monroe offered a quick nod of thanks but there was no time to catch their breath. The Patriots kept coming, and she was back to back with Monroe as they fought them off. And then, all of a sudden, silence reigned over the station. Charlie was breathing hard, her knife in one hand and sword in the other, and was covered in blood that mostly wasn't hers. The fight had been short and brutal, and now it was over.

She glanced over at Monroe to see if he was still standing. His face was splattered with blood and she was reminded of how he'd looked in Vegas after facing an opponent in the ring. She'd had him in her crosshairs then, but she'd still recognized that he was a warrior to the core. He looked even more fierce now. His gaze slid away from hers to take in the soldiers at their feet.

"Not bad, kid."

She bristled. "Wow, high praise from the General." She knew he didn't like her calling him that. He'd never said why, of course, but the displeasure was written all over his face every time she did. Mostly she'd said it now because she was getting annoyed with the 'kid' thing, but also because she'd suddenly needed to throw that wall back up between them. That little scene in the woods back there was still simmering way too close to the surface and she didn't trust herself with anything other than hostility. "I think the words you're looking for are 'Thanks, Charlie, for saving my ass'."

She turned on her heel before he could reply. Bodies littered the train platform – mostly Patriot, but a couple of the kids as well, and one or two of their guys. She picked her way around them to go see if Ronan was still alive. He was, and she grinned at him when he caught sight of her. "Christ, girl, you give a whole new meaning to the word bloodbath." She couldn't help the laughter that burst out, fueled by the adrenaline still coursing through her. "Oh, don't tell me you didn't have a _little _bit of fun." He shook his head and winced, pressing a hand to the bullet wound in his side. "Maybe if I didn't get shot."

"Can you walk?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Charlie grabbed one of his arms to help him to his feet, and he let out a grunt of pain. "Come on, we need to get you to the doctor."

"What about them?"

She glanced back at the kids they'd come to rescue. The ones who weren't unconscious or dead were huddled together, terrified. Connor was doing his best to assuage their fears and convince them that the Patriots were actually the bad guys. It was strange – earlier, when those worried parents had come to them for help all she'd thought of was Jason and what had been done to him. She knew nobody deserved that. But now that the battle was done, Charlie found herself strangely apathetic to the fate of those kids. She shrugged. "They're fine. I'm more worried about you anyway." They commandeered one of the Patriots' wagons and she helped Ronan climb in the back. "Think you can hang on a little longer? I'm gonna go see if anyone else needs a ride back."

She returned to the platform to find the guys dealing with the body of one of Liv's men, but he was the only casualty they had. She was pleased that nearly everyone had survived while the Patriots hadn't, but she wasn't surprised. They all had that same hunger in them to see the Patriots destroyed, and it served them well. Connor grabbed her arm as she passed by. "Hey, you ok?"

"Yeah, you?"

She didn't quite understand the look he gave her when he explained about the long slash along his ribs, but she didn't care enough to wonder about it. "I'm ok otherwise," he assured her. "Look, can you help me convince these idiots that we're saving them?" She glanced at the group of teens and gave them a cool once-over. "You want to be Patriots? This is what happens to them. Your call."

"Charlie."

She stiffened. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, uncertainty was overtaking the hostility she'd mustered. Still, she met Monroe's eyes defiantly, daring him to say something about what had happened and silently pleading him not to all at once. His expression was unreadable. The silence became unbearable and she huffed. "What is it?"

"Thanks for having my back," he said finally, and she could see he was sincere. She nodded. "Yeah. Same." For the moment the tension was broken, but when she turned to head back to the wagon where Ronan waited, she couldn't help but feel like a coward.

* * *

"Let me ask you something, Charlie."

Charlie paused in trying to scrub the blood out of her hair and raised her brows expectantly at Annabeth. The doctor crossed her arms tightly and glanced back at the room where Ronan was now resting after his makeshift surgery. "Did it ever occur to you – to _any _of you – to try and rescue those kids without killing everyone in sight?"

"No," she replied honestly, and wondered where Annabeth was headed with this line of questioning. In a war against the Patriots the goal _was _to kill everyone in sight. The doctor sighed heavily and looked at Charlie with a mixture of pity and remorse. "Then how are we any different from them?"

"Simple. We're not attacking entire towns with mustard gas or torturing and brainwashing innocent people to turn them into weapons."

"Not yet."

Charlie tossed the hairbrush into the bucket of water and squared off against Annabeth. The doctor had maybe ten years on her, but Charlie knew without a doubt that she had a lifetime of experience over Annabeth. "What did you think was going to happen?" she demanded. "That the Patriots would just hand them over if we waltzed in there and asked nicely?"

"I'm not that naïve," Annabeth protested. Charlie rolled her eyes. "Sure seems like it."

"No – look, I'm not – " She stopped and took a breath. "How many people have you killed, Charlie?"

"What, today?"

"No, since the beginning. How many?"

Charlie shrugged. "I don't know. I don't keep track."

"_That _is what I'm afraid of. If both sides lose their humanity, then what are we fighting for?" Charlie's mouth fell open, but after a moment of choking on indignation she managed a reply. "We're fighting for freedom. For _survival_." This time the doctor's look was all pity. "Don't lie to yourself. You're doing this for revenge, for the loss of your family."

"You're damn right I am," Charlie hissed, vowing to knock the teeth out of whoever had blabbed her story. "Because I'm free to do whatever I want. Why are _you _here if you're so against this war?" Annabeth was silent for a very long moment, and looked again to the dining room that had turned into an operating room. "Because somebody needs to mop up after you. Not everybody is a soldier like you, but we're _all _casualties. Excuse me," she said, suddenly sounding exhausted, and turned to go and check on Ronan. Charlie hurled the hairbrush at the door as it closed. "What a lovely fucking speech!" She stormed out of the house to search for something – anything – that would help dispel the furious storm brewing in her.

She wanted to scream, but there was nobody around to scream at, which meant there was nobody around to punch either, which was something else she was itching to do. She wanted to smack Annabeth for having the gall to even think that shit and still call herself part of the Resistance, and now that she thought about it, she wanted to smack Monroe too. "Goddamn him!" She seized the axe that sat next to the woodpile and drove it into a log waiting to be split. It felt good – great, actually, to imagine it was his head on the chopping block, so she did it again. He'd messed with her head back in those woods, and because she'd been so desperate for a little human connection, she'd _let _him. She'd encouraged him, even. And now, because her head was already a mess, she was having a hard time brushing off Annabeth's accusations. She swung the axe over and over again. "This is All. Your. _Fault._"

"I can only assume you're talking about me."

Charlie whirled around. Monroe was at the edge of the woodpile, his hands held up in surrender. She glanced down at the axe in her hand and actually considered if for half a second or so. She relented and dropped the handle, but glowered at him. "Now is _not _the time."

"Yeah, well, I don't care. We're going to talk-"

Charlie cut him off immediately, her fingers balling up into fists. "There is _nothing _to say."

"Oh, bullshit. You're out here in the middle of the night chopping wood like your life depends on it. I'm betting you have a lot to say."

She'd never felt so many different things at once, and the mass of emotion was threatening to tear her apart. He stood there with hooded eyes, still bruised and bloody from the battle, and was challenging her. So she did the first thing that came to mind: she punched him. His head snapped to the side, and he spit out a bit of blood, but she knew she was in serious trouble when he did absolutely nothing in retaliation. She tried to shove past him, but he grabbed her arm. "This isn't over," he said, his voice low. She wrenched her arm out of his grasp and stormed away, and absolutely _hated _herself for the fact that some visceral part of her had shuddered when he'd touched her again.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry for such a long delay, but this chapter completely kicked my ass. I've spent the entire time since my last update trying to write it, but it's been difficult. There was so much I wanted to get done in this chapter, but in the end I cut it shorter than I'd intended. I know some of you are anxious to get to the Charloe stuff, but I want to make it happen in a realistic way. There's nothing I like less than two characters suddenly deciding they're madly in love out of nowhere. Please, be patient :) (and gentle with your reviews on this one. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this chapter).**

* * *

Charlie had felt the target on her back all day long. Monroe had been watching her and wasn't bothering to hide it. Every time that spot between her shoulder blades started to itch, she'd glance around and inevitably meet his unwavering stare. It was unnerving and it annoyed the hell out of her. Finally it got to be too much and she threw down the peas she'd been shelling for Liv. Colin and Derek must have seen murder in her eyes as she stalked over to the three of them because they scattered, leaving her and Monroe alone. "Enough of this," she snapped.

"You want to hit me again?" he said wryly.

"I always want to hit you," she retorted, then shrugged restlessly. "So I overreacted a little. Sue me."

"Overreacted about _what_?" he taunted, probably in retaliation for her punching him. She growled in frustration. "Don't be an ass… or is that like asking you not to breathe?" They glared at each other for a moment, then Charlie deflated a little. "Look, I don't really know what to say here." To her surprise, she saw a hint of uncertainty in his eyes before he covered it with bravado. "Well, you almost let me feel you up in the woods. Let's start there."

"Oh fuck _you_," she snarled, indignation and embarrassment flaring up in her. She whirled around, not in the mood to be turned into a joke.

"Charlie, stop." He reached out to grab her arm and pull her back. "I'm sorry. But, really, why did you?"

She crossed her arms and studied him. Even though he was wearing his poker face, a hint of vulnerability lurked there. She wanted to tell him harshly that she'd just been hungry for a little physical contact, but the reality was that nobody had stirred her blood quite like that before. She'd spent a lot of restless hours last night coming to that conclusion, and as a result was more confused than ever. Finally she sighed. "I don't know. Do you not get what this is like for me? I _loathed _you," she said, and ignored the way he flinched. "I hated you with every fibre of my being for so long, and to go from hating you that much to – _not_…" That seemed the safest way to characterize the feelings she didn't yet understand. "It's kind of fucked up." _Kind of fucked up_ didn't even begin to cover it, actually. He'd literally killed half of her family, and here she was trying to pretend she didn't want his hands all over her.

She swallowed the guilt that welled up at that thought. She remembered she'd once told Miles that she'd _never_ let Monroe touch her, and now couldn't help but laugh at the irony. "Look, it would be better if we just forgot about this."

"I don't think so," he said forcefully. She met his stare evenly and wished with all her heart that she didn't feel the _pull_ that had sprung up between them. "Why did you go along with it?" she asked finally. He took a step toward her and her stomach did a funny little flip. "Because I…" He trailed off and stiffened, his gaze hardening on something over her shoulder. She immediately grabbed the hilt of her sword as she turned, and then froze.

It was Luke. He was down the laneway talking to Connor, and as one they looked over at her and Monroe. Even at a distance she could see that Luke's smile seemed forced, but he clapped Connor on the shoulder and started over toward them. Monroe's entire demeanor changed, and he had that look he got when he was about to attack. She slapped a hand on his chest to stop him. "Don't." He was incredulous. "You don't remember that asshole?" She winced. "No, I do. I travelled with him for a while before I found you." Monroe's mouth fell open slightly. "You're _kidding _me. That guy? He was working for the fucking Patriots! I thought you were smarter than that."

_Ouch_. That barb stung more than it should have, and it got her back up. "You know what? Screw you. He's the one who introduced me to the Resistance in the first place."

"And you bought his act just like that?"

"What, people can't change?"

His jaw tightened. Luke was steps away now and she knew without a doubt that this reunion would be a lot smoother if Monroe wasn't around. "Look, I'll handle this."

"You'd better," he said furiously. "Or I will."

* * *

Bass clenched his hands and shoved them deep into the pockets of his jeans to stop him putting them through a wall. "Who _is _this guy?" Connor asked, and Bass sneered as he watched the little reunion between Charlie and her old 'travel buddy'. "Someone I should have killed when I had the chance." She didn't look too pleased to see the guy, and Bass wondered if they'd ever done _more_ than just share the road. Jealousy reared up swiftly and he hissed out a breath. She was Miles' niece, for Christ's sake. He was supposed to watch her back and keep her alive, not be so goddamn hot for her all of a sudden he could hardly think straight. Where the _fuck_ had this come from?

Thinking back, he remembered it had _never _sat well with him that she'd slept with Connor. He'd never been able to come up with a good reason why, but it had festered until he'd had to confront her about choosing to sleep with a _Monroe. _He'd just never had the chance to realize he thought she'd chosen the wrong one. So maybe this attraction to her wasn't exactly a new development, and after that incident in the woods it seemed it wasn't so one-sided anymore either. He could understand why she was so hell-bent on rejecting the idea, though. If Miles had still been around he wouldn't have thought for a second of acting on it – Miles would've skinned him alive if he knew what direction Bass' affection had taken.

But things had changed.

And now, as if things weren't complicated enough, this asshole shows up. It was out of respect for Charlie that Bass hadn't killed the bounty hunter on sight, but as he watched the conversation unfold between the two of them, he regretted his decision. The son of a bitch was looking at Charlie like she was the ripest piece of fruit he'd ever seen, and it made Bass want to rip the guy's throat out.

He scrubbed his hands over his face wearily. This situation was _all kinds _of fucked up.

"So why didn't you kill him then?" Connor asked, sounding mildly interested. Bass slanted a look at his son. "Charlie figured she owed the guy and I needed her on my side."

"And now that she is?"

Charlie's head swivelled around then, searching until she caught Bass' gaze. He recognized that look of anticipation she got when a Patriot was about to die and she tilted her head, inviting him over. "I'll see what he wants, then decide if I should kill him or not."

* * *

Charlie took a calming breath as Monroe stormed off and regarded her old traveling companion warily. "Luke. What're you doing here?"

"Hey Charlie." When her brows raised in surprise at the use of her real name, he shrugged. "No point in keeping up the charade anymore."

"No, probably not. What're you doing here?" she asked again.

"I was in the area and heard about the massacre in Cherry Hill. I had a hunch and figured if you were around, you'd be here at Liv's."

"And you tracked me down because…?"

"I have some information you might be interested in." He paused. "That was Sebastian Monroe."

Her fingers tightened on the hilt of her sword and she narrowed her eyes. "And?" Despite what she'd said to Monroe in defense of Luke, she'd never trusted him much and at this moment was wondering if she should have let Monroe stick around. Luke shook his head, oblivious. "The last time I saw you with him you wanted him dead. Now you're working with him?"

"A lot's changed. Get to the point," she said coolly. She didn't like the way he was looking at her – it made her uneasy to her core. He smiled a little at her attitude. "It's nice to know not everything's changed. Anyway, it's about the President. The U.S. President," he clarified, and Charlie felt a flutter of excitement. She instinctively looked around for Monroe and beckoned him over. "I think people are going to want to hear this."

* * *

"Play nice," Charlie ordered as he approached. Bass crossed his arms and waited, then smirked. This guy did not look happy to see him. So, because he couldn't help himself and partly to have a little fun at the bounty hunter's expense, Bass shifted so that he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Charlie. He didn't touch her - she'd have cut his arm off if he did right then - but he got close enough to make it seem that he _could_. Luke scowled but got to the point when Neville joined them. "The U.S. President's planning on visiting a town south of here in a couple of weeks," he said, and instantly earned all of Bass' attention. "Apparently he and President Carver are doing some town hall PR stunt to foster goodwill about the Texas-Patriot union. I passed through the place a week or two ago-" He fished a flyer out of his bag and passed it over to Neville, who was so desperate to see President Davis dead that he was practically frothing at the mouth. "Place called Willoughby."

Bass' gaze snapped to Charlie. Her complexion had paled a little, but her eyes had gone cold and her expression hardened. He knew that she was already shutting down that part of herself that held the emotion about Miles, Rachel, and Gene. It was the opposite in him. Bass felt that familiar fire ignite and thought of Miles to fan the flame. Vengeance was so close he could practically taste it. He wondered if Charlie could see it in him because she nodded once, minutely. The bounty hunter seemed to notice the shift in the group. "You've heard of it?" he asked, of no one in particular.

"We're familiar with it," Neville said mildly.

They spent the better part of the day making plans and speculating. The consensus was that the Patriots had some ulterior motive in hosting that little meet-and-greet in Willoughby, and Bass' best guess was there'd be an assassination attempt on the Texan President. Connor was skeptical. "Wouldn't that be the fastest way to alienate the people from the Patriots?"

"Not if they're going to pin it on someone else," observed Charlie. Bass nodded, impressed. "That's what I'd do. Word from the Plains is the surviving war clans have started working together, but they're not a threat Texas would take seriously. They'd probably look to pin something like this on California."

"So when California and Texas go to war, the Patriots come in and mop up," Neville finished. "They look like the heroes."

Connor looked pensive and calculating in equal parts. "So when do we leave?"

"Soon as we can. Tomorrow. Day after at the latest." It was a week's ride to Willoughby and Bass wanted to get there well ahead of the Patriot convoy. The guys drifted off to make arrangements, and Bass had to resist the urge to follow Charlie. He needed to know whether she was ready to face the ghosts that awaited them in Willoughby, and he needed to know where they stood with each other, but as she walked away her face was a mask of ice, and he understood that all of those questions would have to wait.

It was as he was packing the wagons with their weapons store that Connor wandered over. Bass wasn't much in the mood for conversation just then - it had struck him that he was about to come face-to-face with Miles' death, and he was having a hard time adjusting to the idea - but something about the way Connor was hanging around made him sigh. "What?"

"I had a thought..."

"Congratulations." The kid was coiled tight as a spring and was doing a lousy job of trying to look casual. "Well?"

"We're going to Willoughby to kill the President and probably stop this supposed war, right?"

Bass had to swallow back about fifteen different sarcastic replies, and nodded sharply, wondering where this was going.

"Well, _why_?"

Bass blinked slowly, then studied his son narrowly. "You're going to have to paint me a picture here, kid, because I know you're not asking me why we're going to kill the Patriot leader."

"No. No, I get why you want the Patriots dead. I'm _asking _why you want to stop a war that can get us the Republic back and then some."

Well, he hadn't been expecting that. In fact, he was pretty damn surprised. For months Connor had barely mentioned the Republic and Bass had thought he'd lost interest. _Hoped he had_, a voice whispered, but Bass ignored it. Now was not the time to be questioning his own motives; now was the time to open his eyes to Connor's. "You're thinking if we let Texas and California go to war, the East will be free for the taking," he said slowly. It wasn't a bad idea. Actually, it was a pretty good one, but something in him was pushing back against it. "We don't have the manpower for that."

"Not now, but I've heard more than once that your Militia is just out there waiting for orders..._your _orders."

_Well, hell_. The kid was good. If Bass wasn't who he was, he might have been swayed by that. Charming, deferential, convincing. How had he missed it? All of a sudden it was as if a veil had been lifted and Bass was getting his first good look at Connor. "Yeah, it's something to think about. Might have a hard time talking _them_ into it. Neville wants Davis dead. He'll die to make it happen."

"Or die trying," Connor shrugged. "If these guys don't want to come along, that's their problem. There are plenty of people out there who'd be happy to take their place."

Jesus, had he ever been fooling himself. The kid was...not a kid. Bass had been so enamored with the idea of finding his son that he hadn't allowed himself to see Connor as a man - one who'd spent his entire life being molded by one of the fiercest people Bass had ever encountered. Connor was trying to get a read on him, that much was obvious, so Bass did his best to buy some time to wrap his head around all this. "So what do you suggest we do? Forget going to Willoughby altogether?"

"No, I think we should go and make sure things turn out the way we want them to."

It struck Bass that maybe those things weren't the same in him and Connor. Now, all of a sudden, he had to deal with the fact that not only was his kid someone he didn't know if he could trust, but he wasn't sure anymore if he wanted the Republic back at all.

He had never missed Miles more than in that moment.

"We'll have to be smart about this," he said finally, just hoping to placate Connor enough for him to drop the subject. "Come up with a strategy. But we can't know what we're walking into until we get there." To his immense relief, Connor accepted that as the end of the conversation. He caught sight of Annabeth coming out of the house and sauntered over to her, smiling that cocky smile he had and acting like he didn't have a care in the world. Bass watched him go and immediately felt the weight of the world settle on his shoulders.

* * *

There was an air of joviality around the fire that night, but Bass didn't let it draw him in. So much had gone down that day that he couldn't even if he'd wanted to. He wasn't the only one who hadn't joined the party, though, and when he saw Charlie alone on the porch he decided she'd had long enough to think things over. She was leaning against the railing as he approached, and raised her eyebrow in that way she always did. Her sliver flask dangled from her fingers and she took a swig as he joined her. "You gonna share that?"

"Wasn't planning on it," she said, and downed another mouthful. The corner of his mouth twitched and he crossed his arms as he leaned his back against the rail. "Are you ready for this? To go back?"

"I'm fine."

He believed her. There was a conviction in her voice that convinced him she wasn't going to falter when the time came. And she definitely wasn't the type to just tell him what he wanted to hear, which made her about the only person he could trust. He had the sudden urge to bury his face in her neck and unload all of his problems so that she could tell him what to do.

"What about you, General?"

Fuck, he hated that. Normally he was able to brush it off because he knew she was trying to needle him, but today it was the straw that broke him. "Would you stop fucking calling me that? I'm not _him_." She finally looked over at him, and her eyes were hooded and unreadable in the dark. "Aren't you?"

"_No_. You damn well know that or you wouldn't have stuck around, and you sure as hell wouldn't have let me touch you." The ensuing silence was like a chasm between them, but after a beat, she closed the gap. "So we're back to that."

"You're goddamn right we are," he snapped. "Don't bother trying to pretend there's nothing going on here," he said. They were going to hash this out now whether she liked it or not. "Fine," she agreed and pushed back from the railing to lean toward him a little. His fingers itched to reach out and touch her again; to tangle in her hair and pull her against him. Her voice dropped low. "I just figured you'd be too busy chasing your Republic to worry about whether or not you want to fuck me."

He recoiled. She'd overheard his conversation with Connor. "Charlie - _no_. It's not that simple."

"Sounded pretty simple to me," she shrugged. "Let this war happen and you and Junior take back the Republic. General Monroe lives again," she said bitterly. "Stop," he commanded, before he lost all control over the situation. "Look, Connor blindsided me with that. I said what I did to get him off my back until I could figure things out." She snorted. "Do you really think I'm that stupid? This _has_ been your plan all along, hasn't it?" He had the most terrible sinking feeling, but he couldn't lie to her. "It was the only way to get Connor to leave Mexico," he admitted finally. She let out a sharp, bitter laugh and shook her head. "I don't know why I'm surprised," she said. "I should know better by now. You're so desperate for someone to love you that you'd burn the world down to get it."

She may as well have driven her knife into his gut. He jerked back as if she had, and that familiar pit of self-loathing cracked open. He thought he saw a flash of regret in her eyes, but it was overshadowed by disappointment. "You know what? It doesn't matter. You do whatever you need to do. All I want is to see the Patriots wiped out. After that, I don't care if Texas and California go to war. I don't care if you want to take over the world. I probably won't live long enough to see it happen anyway."

She stepped around him to leave, but he blocked her exit. "You're _wrong_. About this and about me," he said fiercely. She gave him a long, searching look. "You have no idea how much I wish that were true." She didn't look back as she walked away. He sagged against the rail, overwhelmed by a nauseating sense of dread. He hadn't even had her yet - had barely even realized he wanted her - and he'd already driven her away.


End file.
